The Anniversary
by awkwardturtle10
Summary: One day a year, Niko lets himself be sad. No real spoilers for anything past Nightlife, just a ficlet I've been sitting on for a while that's always felt unfinished, but maybe that's okay.
It had been a long night. It was nearly five AM before Ish let me go, and I knew Niko would probably be awake before I got back. Today was going to be a bad day for him.

It never mattered that much to me—I didn't remember most of it, but Niko did. Probably in excruciating detail, the way his memory worked. It had taken a couple of years before I'd caught on—the first year I was still in and out of it, and paying attention to things like dates was definitely not happening. I think the second year I'd probably noticed that Niko was in a bad mood, but that did happen every now and then. He was human, and even the most zen of ninjas sometimes woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I'd probably just left him alone and gone about my day. It's not like he took his feelings out on me or anything. It wasn't until the third year that he'd actually told me what was going on. I was 19, and we'd gotten fairly settled in New York by that point. Nik had his anal-retentive morning routine of meditating, running, showering, and then he would scrub the bathroom from floor to ceiling, every day. It was one of our shittier apartments and there was some kind of slimy fungus growing in the tile grout and Nik was determined that he could get rid of it despite two months' evidence proving otherwise. That day though, he hadn't done any of that. We'd worked out a truce that year that required me to run only in the evenings, provided I didn't "throw any tantrums" about it. Niko's part of the deal was that he wasn't allowed to wake me up and force me to run in the mornings, and he got to enjoy "tantrum-free" runs with me every evening. This only lasted a few months, but I was still enjoying my ability to sleep in when the anniversary swung around that year. I hadn't noticed that he'd skipped his run or his early morning wake up, but I did notice when the bathroom didn't smell like bleach. Confused, I'd checked Nik's room, and sure enough, he was still in bed: awake, but still under the covers.

I expected to find pretty much the same situation today so I stopped at the lone organic café that had just opened a few blocks from the Ninth Circle—even Monster Avenue was getting gentrified these days—and got coffee and a bearclaw for myself and a soy chai latte for Nik. He, of course, would never buy himself a frothed fake-milk drink that was _sweetened_ (with honey, c'mon, which really should not count), but I knew he secretly liked them. He'd ordered them for me a few times too many when he was on some noble quest to cut coffee out of my diet (that might have been around the same time the tantrums started up again…), and when I refused to drink them out of principle, he always finished them so they wouldn't "go to waste," but I could tell he liked them. I also got him a prune flaxseed muffin that would hopefully quell any fears he might have about potentially consuming an unbalanced breakfast. I'm a good brother.

It was five thirty by the time I got home, and while Niko wasn't in bed, he was still in his room, meditating. I set the drinks on his bedside table and plopped myself down on top of his neatly made blankets. He tried to maintain his concentration and ignore me, but the sound of pastry paper rustling as I bit into my bearclaw made him give up. He exhaled and said, "You are not eating in my bed. I know you are not."

"Sorry I wasn't here when you woke up," I replied, taking another bite as he stood from his lotus position on the floor.

He snatched my breakfast out of my hand and placed it on the bedside table before sinking down to sit next to me. "You don't have anything to apologize for, Cal," he said softly, staring straight ahead at the wall. There was a much longer pause than I was expecting before he added, "Other than the crumbs with which you have defiled my bed, that is."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you might want to stick around in here for a while so I brought sustenance. That's hardly a crime." I said this with as much forced casualness as I could.

Mask tightly in place, Niko gave a tsk tsk and shook his head. "I would never let you wallow in your room all day, now would I?"

"No but I'm way nicer than you. You get to deal with the little brother treatment, not the big brother treatment."

Nik pulled his eyes away from the spot on his wall that they'd been glued to and he looked at me. His eyes were haunted by things that had happened a long time ago, but there was warmth there too. "Is that so?"

I nudged his shoulder with mine. "Yep. Guess you got lucky."

"Yes." He cleared his throat. "I did. Nonetheless, I do believe that we can spare my mattress further harm, and eat in the kitchen like civilized people." And with that, he was up, carting the goodies away into the kitchen, forcing me to follow him. This was getting a little easier every year. That first year that I'd noticed, I'd been half-asleep when I saw him still in bed, and the only thing I could think to do was to slide in next to him and ask him what was wrong.

"It was three years ago, today," was all he'd said, but it was all he'd needed to say. We'd spent several hours like that, until at some point I'd ordered delivery and we'd eventually moved to the couch and watched TV for the rest of the day. Nik had been quiet all day, and I'd called us both in sick to work. It had almost felt like we were kids again, just hanging out together all day without anything to do. Our childhood had been shitty, but we'd at least had that. Until that day, that is, when Niko watched his brother taken from him by monsters, and his mother burn to death. After that, there hadn't been a lot of lazy days.

But now, once a year, we cleared our schedules for 24 hours and we did whatever Niko wanted to do. My demons haunted me pretty much year-round, but Niko was usually able to keep his at bay, except for the anniversary. And I tried to hold my shit together for 24 hours.

I sat at the breakfast counter and tried to soak up my sugar and caffeine while Niko walked back and forth around the kitchen. I'd thought he was getting plates or something, but he was just pacing. I let him continue until I'd finished my bearclaw, and when he still hadn't settled down, I stood and went over to him. His back was to me, and I grasped his shoulders and steered him toward the breakfast counter where his muffin was waiting.

"Look, your brother got you a muffin. You should eat it," I said. He stared at it for a few moments and I stayed behind him until he reached back and grabbed my wrist. When I didn't move, he tugged until I was standing at his side. He shifted on the stool so he was facing me and grabbed my other wrist too.

"Don't leave again." His voice was firm, but his face was apologetic, like he knew what he was saying was irrational because I'd never intentionally left him.

"Okay," I said, because he needed me to. Then I gave him a hug because that's pretty much the only thing little brothers know how to do when big brothers are upset.

* * *

"Go lie down," Nik ordered, after breakfast, when I'd unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn for the sixth time. "You've been up all night."

"No, I want to hang out with you," I said lamely, unable to think of anything more convincing because he was right, and I had been up all night, but I still wanted to be there for him.

Niko rolled his eyes and shoved me onto the couch. He pulled a blanket off the back of it and laid it over me. I sighed.

"What?" he asked, eyebrows raised in a mild threat as he sat on the edge of the cushion.

"You're taking care of me on the day when I'm supposed to make you feel better," I grumbled.

"Well…" Nik ran a rough hand over my hair. "You make me feel better every day, Cal."

Touché. "Fine. I'll go to sleep."

Nik gave a small smirk and tucked the blanket tighter around me. He was a mother hen and I knew fussing over me made him feel better so I let him this time. I even didn't say anything when he smoothed my hair and squeezed my shoulder, like he used to when he put me to bed when I was a kid. There wasn't anything to say, so I fell asleep.

I don't know how long he stayed sitting on the cushion next to me, but I bet it was awhile. When I woke up a few hours later, he was back at the kitchen counter, but this time was speaking quietly with Robin, which surprised the hell out of me. Nik had never wanted to see anyone on this day except for me, but from the look of their body language, it seemed like he was opening up to the puck. Robin was uncharacteristically still, and he was leaning forward toward Nik, engaged in what my brother was saying. Nik's head was bent, and he was making small gestures with his hands as he spoke, seemingly struggling to find the right words.

I felt like I was eavesdropping even though I couldn't make out what they were saying, so I kicked off my blankets and ambled over to them. They both looked so serious. Niko automatically reached out for me, and again, I let him. How could I not? He slid an arm around my back and pulled me close to his side.

"You woke up," he said.

"Sure did. Nothing like four hours of sleep to renew the heart and soul. I see you found a play date while I had naptime." The jokes were weak, but it was all I could muster with Niko looking like that.

"We were talking about Sophia," Robin said. Okay, no more jokes.

"Yes," Nik said, "I was just saying how it seems customary to recount stories about someone who's died, but I can't think of any about her worth telling."

I felt a swell of bitterness rise up inside of me but I tried to squash it back down. Niko didn't deserve her as a mother, but saying that didn't change the fact that that was what he got. What we got. "Uh…she had a lot of books lying around most of the time. Early exposure to reading for you, huh, Cyrano?"

Nik exhaled and seemed minutely relieved. "Thank you, Cal. That's right. That's not unpleasant."

"Oh yeah, anytime. I'm just really a glass-half-full kinda guy, you know?" The absurdity of that statement got Niko's shoulders to relax a tiny bit, so I took it for a success. He patted my back and released me. I peered into the kitchen, then looked back at Robin accusingly when I found it empty. "Did you come all the way over here empty-handed? I don't know what's customary in this situation but I think you could have at least brought lunch."

Robin shot me a glare but I could tell he didn't mean it. "I actually stopped by about an hour ago to see if you two wanted to join for me for an early lunch out, but…ah…"

"He knew something was wrong, so I told him," Niko said, surprising me that he was actually verbally admitting that something was wrong. "I hadn't realized how much time had passed though, Robin, forgive me."

Robin sent a real scowl at my brother then. "Don't insult me by being ridiculous." His face softened slightly. "I could quite easily spare several decades of time to talk with you, about anything. Especially matters of a difficult nature such as this."

Niko ducked his head and thanked him quietly. I knew it was still hard for him to let anyone—including me most of the time—see him being vulnerable, physically or emotionally. I tugged on his braid as I passed behind him to pull open the drawer of takeout menus. They were mostly mine, but I knew there was one in there for a vegan place that Niko ordered from sometimes when he knew I wouldn't be home for dinner. I found it, buried under a dozen different Chinese menus that all offered the same stuff, and brought it over to Robin. "Here," I said, watching his face fall as he saw the pictures on the front cover of various forms of textured soy protein. "You can buy us lunch instead."

I leaned backward against the counter while Robin got up to call the restaurant. Nudging Niko's elbow with mine, I said, "Sophia also gave us each other, so there's that."

A small, rueful smile came over his face. "Yes, there is that."


End file.
